Spoiler ahead: late in the third book, it is revealed that Jehovah is the bad guy, and Markov (in the role of "dust") is the good guy!

The phrase "his dark materials" is from Milton:

… Into this wilde Abyss,The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,But all these in thir pregnant causes mix'tConfus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordainHis dark materials to create more Worlds,Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiendStood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,Pondering his Voyage...

Phillip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials is an extended allegory upon this topic.

Spoiler ahead: late in the third book, it is revealed that Jehovah is the bad guy, and Markov (in the allegorical role of "dust") is the good guy!

The phrase "his dark materials" is from Milton:

… Into this wilde Abyss,The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,But all these in thir pregnant causes mix'tConfus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordainHis dark materials to create more Worlds,Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiendStood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,Pondering his Voyage...

Gosh-golly, I'll keep this thread going, `cuz the topic IMHO is both interesting and important. Just as Wigner inquired as to the "the unreasonable efficacy of mathematics in explaining the physical world", isn't it equally interesting to inquire as to "the unreasonable efficacy of poetry in motivating mathematics"?

Just to chest-compress this cardiac-arrested topic one final time, IMHO a book in which several prominent mathematicians each discussed one poem, interpreting it in mathematical terms, would find many readers.

Because isn't it true, that the associative structure of human cognition is such that a practiced ability to "see mathematics in poetry" would necessarily lead to improved ability to "see poetry in mathematics"?

The latter skill, everyone believes is good!

For example, here's an "easy" poetic fragment that applies broadly in mathematics:

------------

Mending WallSomething there is that doesn't love a wall,That sends the frozen-ground-swell under itAnd spills the upper boulder in the sun,And make gaps even two can pass abreast. ...Before I built a wall I'd ask to knowWhat I was walling in or walling out,And to whom I was like to give offense.

-------Here's a somewhat harder one, from the Sung Dynasty, which Shing-Tung Yau especially commends to his students:

Looking for her a thousand timesIn a crowdAll of a suddenAs I turned my headThere she wasStanding in the shades of fading lights